Smallpox Virus research

The disease killed kings, queens, princes, princesses, tsars, e. g. Queen Mary I of England, her husband William II, Queen Mary II of England, Lois I of Spain and many others allegedly died of the disease (Olson et al. The disease is caused by the variola virus, one of the largest viruses which can be seen easily under the microscope. Poxviruses have larger genomes. Since then, it has killed hundreds of millions of people, if not billions (National Library of Medicine). Threatening as it sounds, the disease is not unbeatable. The fall of smallpox started in 1022AD when a Buddhist nun who lived in a mountain called O Mei Shan, Sichuan would grind up smallpox scabs and blow the powder into the nostrils of healthy people.

She did this after observing that those who managed to survive smallpox never got it again. The procedure up to 1700s was adopted for use and was called variolation. Jenner invented smallpox vaccination using far less dangerous cowpox virus. Variolation which used actual smallpox virus was prohibited in England in 1840 (NCBI). There is no specific known treatment. Vaccination and isolation of the infected were the applicable approaches which were often used to control it. Results and Discussion After inhaling air with the variola virus, incubation takes place within a range of 7-17days. The virus is dumbbell-shaped, with a core filled with nucleic acid. Reproduction through replication takes place in the host cell cytoplasm, not in the nucleus. The sickness of smallpox is not unto death when handled in time.

Vaccination done 2-3 days after exposure to the virus can fully prevent the disease from persisting. Five days' lapse after exposure can only help the victim by preventing death from happening. Source: European Molecular Biological Organization The associated side effects after receiving a vaccination for the variola virus range from mild conditions to sometimes overwhelmingly uncomfortable states (Centre for Disease Control, CDC). The lymph nodes responsible for the white blood cells production swell as the body is triggered to generate antibodies for fighting the pathogens. The arm where the several insertions are made can turn out to be very sore and red. Fevers are common occurrences for those who undergo the vaccination exercises. Though very few, in the ratio of 1:20000, some people develop eczema vaccinatum, a condition where the whole body experiences a rash.

Smallpox is not very fatal for a healthy individual as many of the infected could get over quickly. Less than 30% of the infected were in danger of dying. The symptoms of the were recognizable pretty easily, enabling the taskforce commission to end the disease by quarantining the infected from the healthy persons. Immediately after inhaling the virus, the mucosal epithelium is invaded and shortly the viruses travel to the lymph nodes. Viral replication takes place in the spleen, other lymph nodes and white-blood-cell producing body parts like body marrows. Within an area of less than 5mm diameter, 15 straight insertions are made. Blood is expected to come out from the area with vigorous insertions (CDC). A final step of sealing the insertion area is important to keep the pathogens at bay.

Since its eradication, research on smallpox has been very little. The research needs utmost facilities of containment to keep the variola virus from leaking into the public. Variola virus is viewed as a powerful biological weapon due to its high transmission rates (Henderson et a. Viruses, fungi and bacteria are piled in the stocks by some countries as defence tools even after the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972 outlawed such usage. Once a virus is realised to the public, the consequences can only be imagined. For example, when the American dropped the atomic bomb in Japan's Nagasaki, the aftermath had not been pictured. The effects of such an inhuman act are felt even to this day. The world is now set to handle an outbreak of smallpox within a very short time since vaccines developed have been researched on for a long time (European Molecular Biological Organization, EMBO).